Recently, many RSS and BJP leaders have been caught in involved flesh trading activities. A report was published in “Outlook” magazine about as many as 31 tribal girls from Assam were trafficked to Gujarat and Punjab by Sewa Bharati, a social service organization affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in June last year to convert them into Hinduism. However, the controversy settled with time. However, this year some BJP leaders hit the headlines for being caught in flesh trade and trafficking.
CID started a suo motu case against BJP Mahila Morcha leader Juhi Chowdhury, the prime accused of the child trafficking racket in Jalpaiguri. The BJP leader’s name is present in the FIR that the investigating agency had initiated in this connection. In a major breakthrough, the CID had unearthed another newborn baby trafficking racket operating from destitute homes in Jalpaiguri and arrested the kingpin who is headmistress of a primary school. The FIR was lodged after the investigating officers came to know about Juhi’s support to the prime accused Chandana Chakraborty, who was the chairperson of the homes and the headmistress of a primary school in Maynaguri, in running the racket.
After getting enough materials in their hand which proved that children were being trafficked from the homes, the CID officers conducted raids in all the three destitute homes at the same time. They seized several documents. The bank accounts of the homes and Chakraborty have been freezed by the investigating agency. Investigation revealed that the home authorities used to give shelter to “unmarried pregnant women” till they give birth to their child. Later, the same newborn was sold by the home authorities. Preliminary investigation suggests that at least 17 newborn babies were trafficked till date.
The investing reports revealed that the “prospective customers” were allowed to come and have a look at all the children kept one after the other in a line and the price of each babies was fixed almost in the form of auction. The highest bidder used to get the child of their choice. This is not the first such incidence, but in India fate of a woman and child is at risk. The problem is real and widespread.
Trafficking of women and young girls from Nepal and Bangladesh into India for sexual exploitation is widespread. These girls from poor families and often in the age group of 9-14 years are brought into India and sold to brothel owners in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi, amongst several other cities. Not all are kidnapped or forced out of their homes in their native lands. Many are sold by their parents or close relatives to get away from abject poverty. Children less than one year too are purchased and sold. A lot of young boys are trafficked into India for work as bonded labour in industries like coal, brick kilns, handloom and embroidery, rice mills and agriculture. They are made to work up to 16 hours a day in return for subsistence food and very little or no money. These children are often sexually exploited by their owners and beaten or tortured in cases of non-compliance.
Nevertheless, this is not a new trend. India is cursed with problem of child abuse, but when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had his election campaign tag line “Beti Bachao”, I being girl felt super protected. I was under the impression that girls would be secure in this country. Unfortunately, those BJP leaders who are accused in flesh trade and rape cases gave me shock waves. I realised that no one can change the fortune of girls in this country. Let it be Modi or anybody else, politicians have no spine or courage to stop it when their own leaders are involved in such heinous crime.
The BJP itself has been found in a tight spot after an ex-MLA was named in a sex racket in Kutch. Four district-level leaders of the party have already been suspended after they were arrested in connection with the racket. Their names figure in the FIR filed by a 23-year-old woman accusing nine persons of gang-rape. The party said the law would take its own course and “nobody will be spared”, but no action has been taken yet, neither Modiji said on his favourite agenda of Beti Bachao. In another such case, Bharatiya Janata Party MP Jagdambika Pal came under scanner after his role in sex racket. Cops arrested 63-year-old P. N. Sanyal, who is said to be the kingpin of this sex racket, after the raid. Delhi Police also found BJP’s Jagdambika Pal’s letterhead in the premises during the raid.
Even in Madhya Pradesh, there was major embarrassment to the ruling BJP in that state, two persons arrested by the police’s Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) during an investigation into a spy ring turned out to have strong links with the party. The party that is known to wear its nationalism on its sleeve got involved in corruption, anti-national activities and flesh trading. If this were not enough, two BJP office bearers were also nabbed by the police in separate cases of running sex rackets. The ongoing crackdown against illegal mining in the state also had some relatives of BJP leaders in the net. The penetration of the party by criminal elements should be a cause for concern to the party. The involvement of BJP office bearers points to the fact that criminal elements have infiltrated the party. The party has been in power in MP for 13 years and it is expected that criminal elements will attempt to identify themselves with it, so that they can put some pressure on the police. The embarrassment was evident when BJP state president Nand Kumar Singh Chauhan told state delegates that he was reprimanded by BJP president Amit Shah for the involvement of criminals in the party. Whether that happened or not, one doesn’t know but it is up to the party leadership to weed out criminal elements.
Enough is discussed but the point remains here is the same, will the government ever be serious about saving girls? What action BJP or Modiji is going to take against his own ministers? Why should people still trust his beti bachao bluff?
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